Displays shut off during gaming.

HAVOC · 10 Feb 2013

Not sure where to put this, it's related to gaming.
I was playing Skyrim for a couple of hours. Game was running fine, no lags except for one point when I came out of a house (severe FPS drop). Saved game, quit to desktop, restarted the game, and it was fine. Played a little more (maybe an hour later) and then my center and left displays went into power saving mode, right display was still displaying the desktop. I had no control over the PC. There was also a low pitched humming coming from the case. I had to restart it by holding down the power button.

I was not playing the game in surround, just the center display. I also didn't have any temp monitoring programs running at the time. I just now installed EVGA Precision X.
I'll play again (tomorrow) and keep an eye on the temps.

Is there a log file on my computer that might tell me what happened? Overheated card maybe?

ICIT2LOL · 11 Feb 2013

Hum mate might be worth just reseating all cards and sticks and maybe test the PSU for volts at least.

HAVOC · 11 Feb 2013

It happened again, this time only after 5 minutes of gameplay. GPU temp went to 87 degrees C.
But this time when I restarted the computer I got a BSOD error message.

ICIT2LOL · 11 Feb 2013

HAVOC said:

It happened again, this time only after 5 minutes of gameplay. GPU temp went to 87 degrees C.
But this time when I restarted the computer I got a BSOD error message.

Hum sorry Havoc am not that good with those files yet but I would say that the temp on the cards is getting way too high. Are the fans spinning reasonably, clean, and if need be how are you at redoing the thermal compounds mate?

I personally would look at that problem first as the chips may well be close to their temp limits, If that temp were in a CPU then I would almost certainly do the thermal stuff and clean the cooler system.

HAVOC · 11 Feb 2013

I was thinking that I might need to redo the thermal compound. I converted that temp and it's 188.6 F

I'll have to play the game again with the case side panel off and see what the fans are doing.

I did use a can of compressed air to blow out the heatsinks when I put my computer back together. I do have all the stuff to redo the TIM so that's what I might be doing later today.

I have Arctic Silver 5, Prolimatech PK-1 and Shin-Etsu. I also have enough of ArctiClean.

ICIT2LOL · 11 Feb 2013

Good stuff Havoc I thought perhaps you might be a tad surprised if you converted the temps mate as that temp is very close to the max that will shut down most CPU's! For example the Tcase temp for the Intel i5 3570 is only 67.4C!!
See this Processors — Processor operation temperature FAQ

It's good you have the Arctic cleaning stuff too a I always use that and either Arctic Silver 5 or the Noctua NT-H1 compound slightly preferring the Silver though:)

HAVOC · 11 Feb 2013

I have the case side off and found out that my 6 ch. Lamptron controller wasn't hooked up like I thought it was.
5 and 6 are for the two top case fans. I thought they were 1 and 2 (so I had 5 and 6 off). 3 and 4 are for the two front case fans (those were on). 1 and 2 weren't connected to anything but I had them on. Channel 2 is also dead (just found that out).

I'm going to put the case side back on and try playing again.

HAVOC · 11 Feb 2013

I put the side of the case on. Had the 4 channels that I'm using on my controller set to max.
The temp gradually rose from about 60C to 87C and then was hovering around 86C to 89C. It was playing fine after about 10 minutes this time and the displays finally shut off. The noise I'm hearing is from the speakers and I think the game is still running even though the displays shut off.

In Precision X, my fan speed is at 42% with the temp at 88C.
As I type this, my fan speed is at 47% with the temp at a cool 48C.
The fan is also set to auto.

HAVOC · 11 Feb 2013

I set the fan to manual (80%). I was playing the game with a temp of 61C. The displays shut off again.
I set the changes I made back to their defaults (tweaks) and unchecked the mods I was using. Now the game won't even start, it either crashes to desktop or hangs. I verified games files through Steam and it says 1 file is bad but never downloads anything.

I finally uninstalled it (saved my save games).

I'm now reinstalling Skyrim, I'll put my saves back and see what happens.

ICIT2LOL · 11 Feb 2013

So why not just try turning the wick up on the fans altogether? It might be H that the GPU's will have to be done mate

As a by the by I had a Lamptron in my Sandy Bridge but found it was terribly flimsy and it eventually gave up the ghost, so I ended up with a Scythe Kaze Pro temp / fan control and got another one for my Ivy bridge build.

I reckon they are much better quality units than the Lamptron and worth a look at if you ever decide to change